Rebecca

I sat down this evening and paid some bills. Including my car payment and the credit card I have been paying down for years. And I paid them both off. That's right - I am out of debt!! *dances the dance of joy*

Now I just have to resist the urge to celebrate by spending lots of money. Heh.

Now do you want me to put my accountant hat on and tell you that you should continue to make your car payment to yourself in a savings account each month? You'll always need a car, right? So why get out of the habit of not making a car payment? This way when the time does come to buy a new car you'll have a kick ass down payment! And your budget won't get all wonky again when you have to start making car payments. Okay, taking that hat off now...sorry! It's a curse I can't help it...I'm an anal accountant.

Thank you Ms. Accountant! Yeah, my current car has another year in it at most. I'll need to look into opening a second savings account as the place where the 'car payment' goes for the time being. Thank you for saying it out loud, the idea had occurred to me once a while ago, it was good to hear it again right now. I wish you lived closer, I need to see someone about getting my long term finances in shape generally. But still, today is happiness.

Absolutely, today is happiness!! It's awesome to get credit card debt gone...we celebrated greatly when we accomplished it! It takes a lot of hard work to do, so good for you!!!

I'd probably make everyone's head explode if I showed you my savings account spreadsheet. I allocate money in different columns for certain things and pay into each month for those items and other stuff too (like bills that are paid quarterly, every six months, once a year) so I'm not shell shocked when that bill comes. See? Anal Accountant.

Heh. I can pull out notebooks dating back over a decade where I've written down everything I spend and on what. It's not the most logical system, but it does mean I can look back and realize what I spent all of my money on. Anal I've got down pat.